This tribute to the breadth and influence of Trudy Govier’s philosophical work begins with her early scholarship in argumentation theory, paying special attention to its pedagogical expression. Most people first encounter Trudy Govier’s work and many people only encounter it through her textbooks, especially A Practical Study of Argument, published in many editions. In addition to the work on argumentation that has continued throughout her career, much of Govier’s later work addresses social philosophy and the problems of trust and response (...) to moral wrongs. The introduction by Catherine Hundleby situates Govier’s research along the path of her unusual academic life. While following the timeline of Govier’s research publication, in this collection the authors build on her work and suggest certain new connections between her argumentation theory and social philosophy. A Practical Study of Argument, first published in 1985, situates Govier among a distinct segment of informal logicians whose concerns about teaching reasoning to post-secondary students orient their research, Takuzo Konishi argues. Moira Kloster evaluates Govier’s progress in the challenge of providing critical thinking education to diverse and changing social contexts. Shifting gears to social philosophy but still addressing education, Laura Elizabeth Pinto explores the significance of Govier’s work on trust for explaining the problem of “audit culture” for teaching. At the centre of this volume, social philosophy receives an abstract meta-ethical defense from Linda Radzik. Moving solidly into the domain of normative social philosophy, Alice MacLachlan reconsiders Govier’s condemnation of revenge by viewing it as a form of moral address, but she notes how revenge as an act of communication contrasts with argumentation in lacking the respect that Govier maintains is intrinsic to argumentation. MacLachlan ultimately agrees that revenge is morally indefensible. The practical challenges of addressing others in the aftermath of wrongdoing, especially in public contexts, can make it difficult to distinguish between victims and combatants or wrongdoers, Alistair Little and Wilhelm Verwoerd explain, and Kathryn Norlock argues that forgiveness is psychologically vexed too. People may recognize transformation to be in principle possible for all people, Norlock argues, and yet we may find the evidence regarding some particular evildoer sufficient to count that person as an exception. Finally Govier responds to the various papers. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate a view of doxastic control that helps defend the legitimacy of our practice of blaming people for their beliefs. I distinguish between three types of doxastic control: intention-based, reason-based, and influence-based. First I argue that, although we lack direct intention-based control over our beliefs, such control is not necessary for legitimate doxastic blame. Second, I suggest that we distinguish two types of reason-responsiveness: sensitivity to reasons and appreciation of reasons. I argue that while both capacities (...) are necessary for satisfying the control condition, neither is sufficient. Finally, I defend an influence-based view of doxastic control according to which we have the capacity to execute intentions to engage in reflection that causally influences our beliefs in positive epistemic ways. This capacity is both necessary and sufficient for satisfying the control condition for legitimate doxastic blame. I end by defending the view from two objections: that reflection is not necessary for meeting the control condition, and that it is not sufficient. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of moral responsibility are in widespread agreement that we can only be blamed for actions that express, reflect, or disclose something about us or the quality of our wills. In this paper I reject that thesis and argue that self disclosure is not a necessary condition on moral responsibility and blameworthiness: reactive responses ranging from aretaic appraisals all the way to outbursts of anger and resentment can be morally justified even when the blamed agent’s action expresses or discloses (...) nothing significant about his or her “deep self,” judgments and cares, or the quality of his or her will. I argue that the self-disclosure requirement on responsibility overestimates the extent to which our blaming practices and responsibility judgments are responsive to agents as opposed to actions, and that this mistake has the potential to distort both our reactive responses and our understanding of blamed agents’ characters. (shrink)

While libertarians affirm personal responsibility as a central moral and political value, libertarian theorists write relatively little about the theory and practice of this value. Focusing on the work of F. A. Hayek and David Schmidtz, this article identifies the core of a libertarian approach to personal responsibility and demonstrates the ways in which this approach entails a radical revision of the ethics and American politics of personal responsibility. Then, I highlight several central implications of this analysis in the American (...) political and economic status quo. First, this analysis makes a mockery of so-called libertarian/conservative ‘fusionism’, such that libertarian personal responsibility cannot partner with meritocratic conservative thought to provide a plural grounding for rejecting progressive or redistributive economic policy. Next, preferred libertarian policies threaten the status, esteem and social bases of self-respect of citizens who are worse-off through little or no fault of their own. Finally, these policies undermine the ethics of personal responsibility that Americans from across the ideological spectrum value and many conservatives and libertarians celebrate. In the American status quo, those who value personal responsibility must reserve a central place for policies that mitigate opportunity and distributive inequalities. (shrink)

Standing is a peculiar norm, allowing for deflecting that is rejecting offhand and without deliberation interventions such as directives. Directives are speech acts that aim to give directive-reasons, which are reason to do as the directive directs because of the directive. Standing norms, therefore, provide for deflecting directives regardless of validity or the normative weight of the rejected directive. The logic of the normativity of standing is, therefore, not the logic of invalidating directives or of competing with directive-reasons but of (...) ‘exclusionary permission’. That is, standing norms provide for permission to exclude from practical deliberation directive-reasons if given without the requisite standing, regardless of their normative weight. As such, standing is a type of second-order norm. Numerous everyday practices involve the deflection of directives, such as pervasive practices of deflecting hypocritical and officious directives. Of various possible models, the one that best captures the normative structure of these practices of deflection is the standing model. Accordingly, the normativity of standing is pervasive in our everyday practices. Establishing that standing, although a neglected philosophical idea, is a significant and independent normative concept. (shrink)

Perspectivists hold that what you ought to do is determined by your perspective, that is, your epistemic position. Objectivists hold that what you ought to do is determined by the facts irrespective of your perspective. This paper explores an influential argument for perspectivism which appeals to the thought that the normative is action guiding. The crucial premise of the argument is that you ought to φ only if you are able to φ for the reasons which determine that you ought (...) to φ. We show that this premise can be understood in different ways. On one reading, it provides no support for perspectivism. On another reading, the premise lacks support. So, the argument fails. An important upshot of the paper is that the objectivist can embrace the thought about guidance. (shrink)

G.E.M. Anscombe famously remarked that an adequate philosophy of psychology was needed before we could do ethics. Fifty years have passed, and we should now ask what significance our best theories of the psychology of agency have for moral philosophy. My focus is on non-moral conceptions of autonomy and self-governance that emphasize the limits of deliberation -- the way in which one's cares render certain options unthinkable, one's intentions and policies filter out what is inconsistent with them, and one's resolutions (...) function to block further reflection. I argue that we can expect this deliberative "silencing" to lead to moral failures that occur because the morally correct option was filtered out of the agent's deliberation. I think it follows from these conceptions of self-governance that we should be considered culpable for unwitting acts and omissions, even if they express no ill will, moral indifference, or blameworthy evaluative judgments. The question is whether this consequence is acceptable. Either way, the potential tradeoff between self-governance and moral attentiveness is a source of doubt about recent attempts to ground the normativity of rationality in our concern for self-governance. (shrink)

One key desideratum of a theory of blame is that it be able to explain why we typically have differing blaming responses in cases involving significant degrees of luck. T.M. Scanlon has proposed a relational account of blame, and he has argued that his account succeeds in this regard and that this success makes his view preferable to reactive attitude accounts of blame. In this paper, I aim to show that Scanlon's view is open to a different kind of luck-based (...) objection. I then offer a way of understanding moral luck cases which allows for a plausible explanation of our differential blaming responses by appealing to the salience of certain relevant features of the action in question. (shrink)

The role of responsibility in our common-sense morality of self-defense is complex. According to common-sense morality, one can sometimes use substantial, even deadly, force against people who are only minimally responsible for posing a threat to us. The role of responsibility in self-defense is thus limited. However, responsibility is still sometimes relevant. It sometime affects how much force you can use against a threatener: less if they are less responsible and more if they are more responsible. Is there a well-motivated (...) theory that can explain both why the role of responsibility is limited and why it is sometimes relevant? It is hard to see what theory could unify these disparate elements of our common-sense morality, and if one cannot be found then we may simply have to revise some of our pre-theoretic beliefs. But it would be an important advantage of a theory if it could justify those beliefs. I will argue that there is a theory of this kind: surprisingly, the familiar rights theory of self-defense, defended by Judith Thomson, can do so if it is suitably supplemented. Along the way I will survey some alternative theories of self-defense and show why they are not up to the task. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPeople smugglers help transport migrants across international borders without authorization and in return for compensation. Many people object to people smuggling and believe that the smuggling of migrants is an evil trade. In this paper, I offer a qualified defense of people smuggling. In particular, I argue that people smuggling that assists refugees in escaping threats to their rights can be morally justified. I then rebut the objections that people smugglers exploit migrants, have defective motivations, and wrongly violate the law. (...) My conclusion is that people smuggling is sometimes a permissible way of helping refugees to evade unjust immigration restrictions and compelling states to bear their fair share of the global refugee population. (shrink)

It is often assumed that we are only blameworthy for that over which we have control. In recent years, however, several philosophers have argued that we can be blameworthy for occurrences that appear to be outside our control, such as attitudes, beliefs and omissions. This has prompted the question of why control should be a condition on blameworthiness. This paper aims at defending the control condition by developing a new conception of blameworthiness: To be blameworthy, I argue, is most fundamentally (...) to deserve to feel guilty. Being blamed by someone else is not necessarily harmful to the wrongdoer. The blame might not be expressed, or the wrongdoer might not care. But to blame oneself necessarily involves suffering. This conception of blameworthiness explains why the control condition should obtain: We are morally blameworthy for A only if A was under our control because to be blameworthy is to deserve to feel guilty, to feel guilty is to suffer, and one deserves to suffer for A only if A was under one’s control. (shrink)

A prominent objection to the knowledge norm of belief is that it is too demanding or too strong. The objection is commonly framed in terms of the idea that there is a tight connection between norm violation and the appropriateness of criticism or blame. In this paper I do two things. First, I argue that this way of motivating the objection leads to an impasse in the epistemic norms debate. It leads to an impasse when knowledge normers invoke excuses to (...) explain away a prima facie connection between blamelessness and justified belief. Second, I argue that a way out of the impasse becomes available when we take a closer look at some distinctions in the theory of responsibility. There are at least three different notions of responsibility relevant here. I argue that a weaker notion of responsibility – attributability – should be used to motivate the objection that the knowledge norm of belief is too strong. Insofar as the proposal motivates the objection without appeal to blamelessness, it opens up space to move beyond the impasse. (shrink)

I offer analyses of free will in terms of a complex set of psychological capacities agents possess to varying degrees and have varying degrees of opportunities to exercise effectively, focusing on the under-appreciated but essential capacities for imagination. For an agent to have free will is for her to possess the psychological capacities to make decisions—to imagine alternatives for action, to select among them, and to control her actions accordingly—such that she is the author of her actions and can deserve (...) credit or blame for them. For an agent to act of her own free will is for her to have had (reasonable) opportunity to exercise these capacities in making her decision and acting. There is a long philosophical tradition of treating free will as the set of capacities that, when properly functioning, allow us to make decisions that contribute to our leading a good or flourishing life. On this view, free will is a psychological accomplishment. Free will allows us to be the causal source of our actions in a way that is compatible with determinism and naturalism. (shrink)

In this article I propose an original view of the nature of shared intention. In contrast to psychological views (Bratman, Searle, Tuomela) and normative views (Gilbert), I argue that both functional roles played by attitudes of individual participants and interpersonal obligations are factors of central and independent significance for explaining what shared intention is. It is widely agreed that shared intention (I) normally motivates participants to act, and (II) normally creates obligations between them. I argue that the view I propose (...) can explain why it is not a mere accident that both (I) and (II) are true of shared intention, while psychological and normative views cannot. The basic idea is that shared intention involves a structure of attitudes of individuals –including, most importantly, attitudes of reliance – which normally plays the relevant motivating roles and creates the relevant obligations. (shrink)

In this article, I examine Michael Bratman’s account of stability in his planning theory of intention. Future-directed intentions should be stable, or appropriately resistant to change, over time. Bratman claims that the norm of stability governs both intentions and plans. The aim of this article is to critically enrich Bratman’s account of stability by introducing plasticity as an additional norm of planning. I construct plasticity as a kind of stability of intentions which supplements Bratman’s notion of “reasonable stability.” Unlike the (...) latter, plasticity applies mainly to cases in which plan states are abandoned without reconsideration. I focus on the intra-theoretical problems of PTI and elucidate: the distinction between future-directed intentions and plans, the conceptual difference between stability and inertia, which is only implicit in PTI, and the role of the environment of the planner, which has a vestigial role in Bratman’s work. I also defend my incorporation of pl... (shrink)

According to a guiding idea in metaethics, there is a necessary link between the concept of normative reasons and the concept of practical rationality. This notion brings up two issues: The exact nature of this link, and the nature of rationality. With regard to the first issue, the debate is dominated by a certain standard claim. With regard to the second issue, the debate is dominated by what I will refer to as ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’ about rationality, where the latter (...) is assumed to be a necessary condition for the existence of categorical reasons. In this paper, it is argued that subjectivism is able capture an ordinary, non-technical, sense of ‘rational’ whereas objectivism is not. The basic reason is that objectivism fails to account for the essential connection between rationality, malfunctioning, and rational criticism. This means that we face a puzzle: While objectivism appears to be a necessary condition for the existence of categorical reasons, it fails to capture a central sense of ‘rational’. It is finally argued that this puzzle can be solved by abandoning the standard claim about the link between reasons and rationality. (shrink)

Hypocrites are often thought to lack the standing to blame others for faults similar to their own. Although this claim is widely accepted, it is seldom argued for. We offer an argument for the claim that nonhypocrisy is a necessary condition on the standing to blame. We first offer a novel, dispositional account of hypocrisy. Our account captures the commonsense view that hypocrisy involves making an unjustified exception of oneself. This exception-making involves a rejection of the impartiality of morality and (...) thereby a rejection of the equality of persons, which we argue grounds the standing to blame others. (shrink)

The paper examines the conditions under which we are responsible for actions performed under duress, focusing on a real case in which a soldier was compelled at gunpoint to participate in the massacre of civilian prisoners. The case stands for a class of cases in which the compelled act is neither clearly justified nor clearly excused on grounds of temporary incapacity, but in which it is nonetheless plausible that the agent is not morally blameworthy. The theoretical challenge is to identify (...) the excuse in such cases and to explain its basis. The paper argues that when mortal duress excuses in cases of this sort, it does so because the compelled act, though impermissible and freely chosen, nonetheless fails to manifest ‘an insufficiently good will’. The argument depends on a potentially controversial thesis in the ethics of concern, namely, that a thoroughly decent moral agent—someone who cares enough about morality and the values that underlie it—will not always be moved to do what he knows he ought to do. (shrink)

The recent debate over the moral responsibility of psychopaths has centered on whether, or in what sense, they understand moral requirements. In this paper, I argue that even if they do understand what morality requires, the content of their actions is not of the right kind to justify full-blown blame. I advance two independent justifications of this claim. First, I argue that if the psychopath comes to know what morality requires via a route that does not involve a proper appreciation (...) of what it means to cause another harm or distress, the content of violations of rules against harm will be of a lower grade than the content of similar actions by normal individuals. Second, I argue that in order to intend a harm to a person—that is, to intend the distinctive kind of harm that can only befall a person—it is necessary to understand what personhood is and what makes it valuable. The psychopath's deficits with regard to mental time travel ensure that s/he cannot intend this kind of harm. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is also discussed, and it (...) is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. (shrink)

This paper defends a minimal desert thesis, according to which someone who is blameworthy for something deserves to feel guilty, to the right extent, at the right time, because of her culpability. The sentiment or emotion of guilt includes a thought that one is blameworthy for something as well as an unpleasant affect. Feeling guilty is not a matter of inflicting suffering on oneself, and it need not involve any thought that one deserves to suffer. The desert of a feeling (...) of guilt is a kind of moral propriety of that response, and it is a matter of justice. If the minimal desert thesis is correct, then it is in some respect good that one who is blameworthy feel guilty—there is some justice in that state of affairs. But if retributivism concerns the justification of punishment, the minimal desert thesis is not retributivist. Its plausibility nevertheless raises doubt about whether, as some have argued, there are senses of moral responsibility that are not desert-entailing. (shrink)

My primary target in this paper is a puzzle that emerges from the conjunction of several seemingly innocent assumptions in action theory and the metaphysics of moral responsibility. The puzzle I have in mind is this. On one widely held account of moral responsibility, an agent is morally responsible only for those actions or outcomes over which that agent exercises control. Recently, however, some have cited cases where agents appear to be morally responsible without exercising any control. This leads some (...) to abandon the control-based account of responsibility and replace it with an alternative account. It leads others to deny the intuition that agents are responsible in these troublesome cases. After outlining the account of moral responsibility I have in mind, I look at some of the arguments made against the viability of this theory. I show that there are conceptual resources for salvaging the control account, focusing in particular on the nature of vigilance. I also argue that there is empirical data that supports the control account so conceived. (shrink)

The recent debate on cognitive phenomenology has largely focused on phenomenal aspects connected to the content of thoughts. By contrasts, aspects pertaining to their attitude have often been neglected, despite the fact that they are distinctive of the mental kind of thought concerned and, moreover, also present in experiences and thus less contentious than purely cognitive aspects. My main goal is to identify two central and closely related aspects of attitude that are phenomenologically salient and shared by thoughts with experiences, (...) namely the rational role that they play in our mental lives and their determination by factors external to them, such as external objects or reasons. In particular, I aim to defend Phenomenal Rationalism about judgemental thoughts and perceptual experiences: the view that their phenomenal character reflects their rational role, that is, their capacity to provide and/or respond to reasons. I conclude with some remarks about how this view may be extended to other kinds of th... (shrink)

In this paper, I will critically assess the expressive justification of punishment recently offered by Christopher Bennett in The Apology Ritual and a number of papers. I will first draw a distinction between three conceptions of expression: communicative, motivational, and symbolic. After briefly demonstrating the difficulties of using the first two conceptions of expression to ground punishment and showing that Bennett does not ultimately rely on those two conceptions, I argue that Bennett’s account does not succeed because he fails to (...) establish the following claims: punishment is the only symbolically adequate response to a wrongdoing; and punishment is permissible if it is the only symbolically adequate response to a wrongdoing. (shrink)

For a long time the dominant view on the nature of blame was that to blame someone is to have an emotion toward her, such as anger, resentment or indignation in the case of blaming someone else and guilt in the case of self-blame. Even though this view is still widely held, it has recently come under heavy attack. The aim of this paper is to elaborate the idea that to blame is to have an emotion and to defend the (...) resulting emotion account of blame. (shrink)

When a Christian refers to the future full realization of the kingdom of God in an afterlife, it is typically assumed that she is expressing beliefs about the existence and activity of God in conjunction with supernatural beliefs about an otherworldly realm and the possibility of one’s personal survival after bodily death. In other words, the religious language is interpreted in a realist fashion and the religious person here is construed as a religious believer. A corollary of this widely-held realist (...) view is the assumption that if one were to conclude that there is no good reason to believe the asserted claims—for example, no reason to believe that we may survive our bodily deaths in a heavenly realm—then there is no reason to engage in the use of such religious language and the practices which accompany it. I argue that this assumption is false—that there is a meaningful way to use such language in a religious context that does not rest on believing supernatural claims. Against the backdrop of Kant’s discussion of a kingdom of ends understood as a regulative ideal, I argue that religious discourse about the kingdom of God being brought to fruition may be reinterpreted as a useful fiction to draw our attention to and engage our emotions with a distinctive ideal of restorative justice. Though I and others have previously offered fictionalist accounts of language about God, I extend the view here to some religious language about the afterlife. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that praiseworthiness should form part of the analysis of supererogation. I will argue that this view should be rejected. I will start by arguing that, at least on some views of the connection between moral value and praiseworthiness, it does not follow from the fact that acts of supererogation go beyond what is required by duty that they will always be praiseworthy to perform. I will then consider and dismiss what I will call the Argument from (...) Stipulation in favour of holding that acts of supererogation are always praiseworthy. Next, I will examine what I will call the Necessary Connection Argument, which posits a necessary connection between supererogation and praiseworthiness. I will argue that the intuitions used to motivate this argument are best explained by a debunking explanation. (shrink)

The mere means principle says it is impermissible to treat someone as merely a means to someone else’s ends. I specify this principle with two conditions: a victim is used as merely a means if the victim does not want the treatment by the agent and the agent wants the presence of the victim’s body. This principle is a specification of the doctrine of double effect which is compatible with moral intuitions and with a restricted kind of libertarianism. An extension (...) of this mere means principle, where not only using but also considering someone as merely a means is immoral, can explain and unify other deontological principles: doing versus allowing, partiality in imperfect duties of beneficence, and the asymmetry of procreational duties. A loop trolley dilemma is often presented as a counterexample of the mere means principle, but I argue that this dilemma generates a moral illusion, comparable to perceptual illusions. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept derivative blameworthiness for ignorant conduct – the idea that the blameworthiness for one’s ignorance can ‘transfer’ to blameworthiness for one’s subsequent ignorant conduct. In this chapter we ask the question what it actually means that blameworthiness would transfer, and explore four distinct views and their merits. On views (I) and (II), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance and/or one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer only involves an increase in scope. On views (...) (III) and (IV), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance as well as one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer might not only entail an increase in scope, but also in degree. (shrink)

It is a truism that we ought to be rational. Despite this, it has become popular to think that it is not the case that we ought to be rational. In this paper I argue for a view about rationality—the view that what one is rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses—by showing that it can vindicate that one ought to be rational. I do this by showing that it is independently very plausible that what (...) one ought to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses. Thus, the paper also makes a contribution tos the debate about the nature of our obligations. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the prospects for a rights-based approach to the morality of pure risk-imposition. In particular, I discuss a practical challenge to proponents of the thesis that we have a right against being imposed a risk of harm. According to an influential criticism, a right against risk-imposition will rule out all ordinary activities. The paper examines two strategies that rights theorists may follow in response to this “Paralysis Problem”. The first strategy introduces a threshold for when a (...) risk-imposition is a rights violation. The second strategy drops the claim that rights are absolute and maintains that all rights infringements generate compensation duties. It is argued that both strategies face significant practical problems of their own and that the Paralysis Problem seems fatal for a right against risk-imposition in the absence of an adequate account of the morally relevant threshold risk. (shrink)

There are many objections to statistical discrimination in general and racial profiling in particular. One objection appeals to the idea that people have a right to be treated as individuals. Statistical discrimination violates this right because, presumably, it involves treating people simply on the basis of statistical facts about groups to which they belong while ignoring non-statistical evidence about them. While there is something to this objection—there are objectionable ways of treating others that seem aptly described as failing to treat (...) them as individuals—it needs to be articulated carefully. First, most people accept that many forms of statistical discrimination are morally unproblematic, let alone morally justified all things considered. Second, even treating people on the basis of putative non-statistical evidence relies on generalizations. Once we construe treating someone as an individual in a way that respects this fact, it becomes apparent: (1) that statistical discrimination is compatible with treating people as individuals, and (2) that one may fail to treat people as individuals even without engaging in statistical discrimination. Finally, there are situations involving the expression of messages of inclusion where we think it is good, morally speaking, that we are not treated as individuals. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a theory of how claims about an agent’s normative reasons are sensitive to the epistemic circumstances of this agent, which preserves the plausible ideas that reasons are facts and that reasons can be discovered in deliberation and disclosed in advice. I argue that a plausible theory of this kind must take into account the difference between synchronic and diachronic reasons, i.e. reasons for acting immediately and reasons for acting at some later point in time. I (...) provide a general account of the relation between synchronic and diachronic reasons, demonstrate its implications for the evidence-sensitivity of reasons and finally present and defend an argument for my view. (shrink)

The set with the following members is inconsistent: F-Lesson: A person can be blameworthy for performing an action even though she cannot refrain from performing it. Equivalence: ‘Ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible.’ OIC: ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ implies ‘can refrain from.’ BRI: Necessarily, one is morally blameworthy for doing something only if it is overall morally impermissible for one to do it. Since Equivalence seems unassailable, one can escape the inconsistency by renouncing any one of the other (...) members. I first argue against BRI and then motivate a replacement for it that ties blameworthiness to belief in impermissibility. (shrink)

For ambitious metaphysical neo-sentimentalists, all normative facts are grounded in fitting attitudes, where fittingness is understood in naturalistic terms. In this paper, I offer a neo-sentimentalist account of blameworthiness in terms of the reactive attitudes of a morally authoritative subject I label a Nagelian Imp. I also argue that moral impermissibility is indirectly linked to blameworthiness: roughly, an act is morally impermissible if and only if and because it is not *possible* in the circumstances to adopt a plan of performing (...) it without meriting blame, assuming the agent is rational, informed, and meets the conditions of accountability. (shrink)

Are we really to blame only for actions that manifest our character, as Hume claims? In this paper, I explore Hume's reasoning and the nature of blame in general. I suggest that insofar as blame comes in a relational variety as well as the more familiar reactive one, there may be something to be said for linking blame with character flaws after all.

In this paper, I defend my book Conversation and Responsibility in response to three critics: Julia Driver, David Shoemaker, and Manuel Vargas. Driver raises questions about my account of private blame. Shoemaker finds problems with my account of quality of will. And Vargas questions the conversational nature of my account.

This paper examines the notion of fouls in sports. In the first part of the paper, we examine some actual distinctions and classifications between different kinds of fouls. In the second part we examine the significance, validity, and justification of these classifications from a normative perspective.The term ‘foul’ evokes negative connotation; some would say—negative normative connotations. Conventional wisdom suggests that typically to commit fouls is, by definition, to go against the rules or principles of the contest. Since sport contests are (...) constitutive activities—this means that to foul is to go against the essence of the contest. In other words, to commit fouls seems not to play the game; it seems unsporting. Consider the following typical example: in a premiership match in 2014 Hull’s forward Nikica Jelavic spun around Company and had a clear path to the goal. Manchester City’s defender Vincent Kompany then held him back. Although immediately ejected from the game, it is noteworthy that Kompany... (shrink)

Taking Carnap’s classic exposition as a starting point, this paper develops a pragmatic account of the method of explication, defends it against a range of challenges and proposes a detailed recipe for the practice of explicating. It is then argued that confusions are involved in characterizing explications as definitions, and in advocating precising definitions as an alternative to explications. Explication is better characterized as conceptual re-engineering for theoretical purposes, in contrast to conceptual re-engineering for other purposes and improving exactness for (...) purely practical reasons. Finally, three limitations which call for further development of the method of explication are discussed. (shrink)

Should people who perform equal work receive equal pay? Most would say ‘yes’, at least insofar as this question is understood to be asking whether employers should be permitted to discriminate against employees on the basis of race or sex. But suppose the employees belong to all of the same traditionally protected groups. Is (what I call) nondiscriminatory unequal pay for equal work wrong? Drawing an analogy with price discrimination, I argue that it is not intrinsically wrong, but it can (...) be deceptive, in which case it is wrong. (shrink)

Blackmail raises a pair of parallel legal and moral problems, sometimes referred to as the "paradox of blackmail". It is sometimes legal and morally permissible to ask someone for money, or to threaten to release harmful information about them, while it is illegal and morally impermissible to do these actions jointly. I address the moral version of this paradox by bringing instances of blackmail under a general account of wrongful coercion. According to this account, and contrary to the appearances which (...) give rise to the paradox, threatening the release of harmful information to constrain another's actions is almost never morally impermissible unless it is likewise impermissible to carry out one's threat. To defend this claim I identify a special wrong that arises in the paradoxical cases of threatened information release. The account also resolves a number of other puzzles about blackmail—for example, why profiting from a threat in blackmail can sometimes be impermissible, even though accepting identical payment from an independent offer to retain the same information can be permissible. (shrink)

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some claim, as moral agents. However, others have independently argued that fully-fledged moral agency involves a capacity for reactive attitudes such as guilt and indignation, and these capacities might seem beyond the ken of “collective” or “ corporate ” agents. Individuals embodying such agents can of course be ashamed, proud, or indignant about what (...) the agent has done. But just as an entity needs to have its own beliefs, desires, and intentions to qualify as a bona fide agent, the required capacity for reactive attitudes is a capacity to have one’s own reactive attitudes. If fully-fledged moral agency requires reactive attitudes, the corporate agent must itself be capable of guilt and indignation. In this paper, we argue that at least certain corporate agents are. Or, more precisely, we argue that if there are bona fide corporate agents, these agents can have the capacities that are both associated with guilt and indignation and plausibly required for moral agency; in particular certain epistemic and motivational capacities. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism – the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: An act is (...) permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argue that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert. (For access to this paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/sJ2JBVXkztyFMGmxS7tS/full ) . (shrink)

In this paper we explore the relationship between forgiving and punishment. We set out a number of arguments for the claim that if one forgives a wrongdoer, one should not punish her. We then argue that none of these arguments is persuasive. We conclude by reflecting on the possibility of institutional forgiveness in the criminal justice setting and on the differences between forgiveness and acts of mercy.

Directed duties are duties that an agent owes to some party – a party who would be wronged if the duty were violated. A ‘direction problem’ asks what it is about a duty in virtue of which it is directed towards one party, if any, rather than another. I discuss three theories of moral direction: control, demand and interest theories. Although none of these theories can be rejected out of hand, all three face serious difficulties.

I argue against the Doctrine of Double Effect’s explanation of the moral difference between terror bombing and strategic bombing. I show that the standard thought-experiment of terror bombing and strategic bombing which dominates this debate is underdetermined with regards to the agents’ psychologies: (a) if Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber have the same causal beliefs, then why does Terror Bomber set out to kill the children? It may then be this unwarranted and immoral choice and not the Doctrine of Double (...) Effect that explains the moral difference; (b) if the two have different causal beliefs, then we can’t rule out the counterfactual that, had Strategic Bomber had the same beliefs as Terror Bomber, she would have also acted as Terror Bomber did. (shrink)

Some philosophers defend the fact-relative view of moral rights against harm:Whether B infringes A's right not to be harmed by ϕ-ing depends on what will in fact occur if B ϕs. B's knowledge of, or evidence about, the exact consequences of her ϕ-ing are irrelevant to the question of whether her ϕ-ing constitutes an infringement of A's right not to be harmed by B.In this paper I argue that the fact-relative view of moral rights is mistaken, and I argue for (...) an alternative view whereby our rights against harm depend on what we can reasonably demand of others. I illustrate the importance of this conclusion with a discussion of liability to defensive harm. (shrink)